View full sizeNicole Dungca/The OregonianJudy Brennan, director of transfer and enrollment, addressed nearly 50 community members at King School on Wednesday night. The district is attempting to reach out for more input on a respectful process as officials contemplate enrollment balancing strategies.

Nearly 50 community members crowded into King School’s neighborhood facility Wednesday night to meet with district officials, including Superintendent Carole Smith, and discuss the process leading to changes that may hit the Jefferson High School enrollment area by September 2013.

After fielding criticisms for not giving communities enough notice before closing two schools within the Jefferson cluster -- Humboldt and the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women -- the district was especially eager to reach out to stakeholders as it formulates more recommendations, said Judy Brennan, the district’s enrollment and transfer director.

But Wednesday’s meeting made it clear that parents remain skeptical of the district’s outreach. Chabre Vickers, who has a child at Vernon School, said she feared the group would simply become cosigners to recommendations that would have no actual power within the district.

Vickers hoped any changes would help close the achievement gap, saying it tied into her worry that the group ultimately would be powerless.

“If nothing happens, then why are we here?” she asked.

The Jefferson High School enrollment area -- which includes Vernon, Boise-Eliot, Faubion, Ockley Green, Chief Joseph, Beach, King and Woodlawn -- is being impacted by a combination of enrollment issues, the district says. Low enrollment in schools like King, coupled with crowded schools like Chief Joseph, could lead to strategies such as more closures, a middle school, or an early education center.

The district has insisted they don't have plans for the cluster just yet, but some doubt the claim. “I almost feel like you guys might actually have an idea, but you don’t want to act like you have an idea,” parent Tanisha Jones, of the King School PTA told officials, “so you’re going through the motions of this process.”

Many North and Northeast Portland parents heavily criticized the district earlier this year after a swift process shut down Humboldt K-8 and the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women, two small schools in the cluster. Parents of the schools found out about the closure proposals in April, then saw the board finalize the decision just three weeks later.

District officials have since admitted the latest closure process had been poorly handled. "Sometimes we get things right, sometimes we miss the mark," Harriett Adair, executive director of school supports, told the group on Wednesday, speaking of the closures. "We’re very conscious that this was a missing of the mark."

Brennan said the series of meetings through the summer could help the district plan a more "respectful" process as they build toward recommendations that could go before the board in the winter. The district will hold two more meetings on August 7 and 21, at a location to be determined.

She also noted the group would not create the actual recommendations, but instead garner advice on how to further engage the broader community.

For parents like Jones, the district will have to make more of an effort to be clearer and transparent before they gain trust again with a similar process – she told officials to be forthcoming with their constraints, so that community members could deal with them earlier.